Antinuclear

Australia’s Aboriginal Tent Embassy – a renewed drive for Aboriginal rights

Michael Anderson is preparing to launch a legal campaign to overturn the lie of peaceful British colonial settlement of Australia. This legal action will establish beyond dispute that Aboriginal people never ceded our sovereign rights over this land.

This legal challenge will be taken to the international community. We need to seek a binding treaty to fully recognise our rights. This will recognise our demands for comprehensive land rights and an end to mining on our land…..

Aboriginals of Australia: Tent Embassy Celebrates 40 – Year Anniversary  Unrepresented Nations and people’s Organisation (UNPO) 16 Jan 12, On January 16, Activists and supports came together to celebrate the achievements of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

Few Australian political protests can claim to have made an impact as great or as lasting as the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. First set up on the lawns of Old Parliament House in January 1972, the embassy has been a focal point for the struggle for Aboriginal rights.

Four Aboriginal men, Michael Anderson, Billie Craigie, Tony Koorie and Bertie Williams, launched the embassy in response to then-prime minister Billy McMahon’s refusal to grant Aboriginal land rights. Instead, McMahon had offered to lease stolen land back to Aboriginal people.

The protest swelled, capturing the imagination of Aboriginal activists
and their supporters around the country. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy
received wide media coverage in Australia and internationally. It
threw the spotlight on the appalling conditions Aboriginal people
faced and the refusal of the Australian government to respond to
Aboriginal demands for justice.

The activists decided to make the tent embassy a permanent protest,
while the government pursued legal avenues to evict the
protesters…..
Lara Pullin

The 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy represents a
coming together of several generations of Aboriginal activists. The
event has excited a lot of people around the country…….
Michael Anderson is preparing to launch a legal campaign to overturn
the lie of peaceful British colonial settlement of Australia. This
legal action will establish beyond dispute that Aboriginal people
never ceded our sovereign rights over this land.

This legal challenge will be taken to the international community. We
need to seek a binding treaty to fully recognise our rights.

This will recognise our demands for comprehensive land rights and an
end to mining on our land…..
Michael Anderson

The significance of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy is that it has a
history over 40 years, continuously for the past 20 years. This means
it can be regarded as the longest running political demonstration in
the world.

When I was in London last year, I addressed Occupy London, and the
Aboriginal Tent Embassy was described as one of the first Occupations
in the world. Now, with the Occupy movement, there are tent gatherings
everywhere.

The 40th anniversary will have great significance, as elders will be
attending from all over Australia. From the Northern Territory, there
will be delegations from Arnhem Land to Katherine.

The Central and Western Deserts will be sending representatives. Law
men and women will be coming from all over the country, one of the
first times this will have occurred.

We will begin to form a sovereign union of Aboriginal nations.

Young people are coming down from Queensland. It will be a great day
of Aboriginal unity.

No law has ever been passed to abolish Aboriginal sovereignty. These
issues are now being considered in the Australian Senate.

This is the beginning of a new movement, a new way. We will pursue all
avenues, national and international, to ensure our rights are properly
recognised.

We welcome support from the general community, from the multicultural
community, from the unions and elsewhere. We want a united community,
which fully recognises Aboriginal rights.
http://www.unpo.org/article/13743

January 17, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, ACT, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL